The original is still my favorite. I don't like the galaxy in Nova, just too much alien junk. The original was a much more interesting environment to me. Someone did a total conversion of Overdrive, putting in the original ships and such, but making use of the newer game engine.

I really don't understand why EV hasn't become a multiplayer game. This could be a $4.99/month mmorpg if done right. Like EVE (pc game) but 2D and less complex... c'mon someone pick up the gauntlet!

I really would recommend the original if you can run Mac OS 9 natively. It's such an incredibly addicting game, and if you like it, you'll get to see how the game has changed over all three renditions.

I really would recommend the original if you can run Mac OS 9 natively. It's such an incredibly addicting game, and if you like it, you'll get to see how the game has changed over all three renditions.

Or buy Nova and play the free remakes of the Original and Override ;)

But play them in said order... because even if the gameplay in the first ones rock extremely... the graphics upgrade in Nova makes the step back a bit hard to do. But once you forget that, you're playing the hours away at the cost of productivity, sleep and food.

You shouldn't ask yourself such worthless questions. Aim higher. Try this: why am I here? Why do I exist, and what is my purpose in this universe?

(Answers: 'Cause you are. 'Cause you do. 'Cause I got a shotgun, and you ain't got one.)

If you get Nova, you can play the original and Override under the Nova engine for free, so you essentially get 3 games for the price of one. I liked the Original game a lot, but Nova's improved graphics make it great too. Override was a dunce to me.

Nova's storyline, combat, and graphics were much better than the previous two. But Override and Classic had such a good vibe about them. Particularly Override. I absolutely loved smashing those dastardly Voinians which their pathetic slow-moving heavily armoured ships. The storyline was less complex, but it had a better universe, simply because it had non-human elements.

On a slightly unrelated note, Ares was great too. Unfortunately, it didn't catch on as much.

Voinians . . . that reminds me of how strategic the battles were in Override. You had to use different weapons to be effective against the Voinians because of their massive armor and weak shielding, whereas most other races had the exact opposite. It made that part of the game a heck of a lot of fun. In fact, I think I'm going to reinstall the first two and play them all over again.

Nova did dumb down the tactics bit of it slightly. In Nova, there are blasters, missile, railguns(and beams)all feel the same. In Override, most weapons had different feels and uses. Ships had specific feels and uses. Voinian ships were slow and ponderous, with heavy armour and slow weaponry(like the Aurorans). UE ships were more general purpose. Those weirdly spelled alien races had great shields and bad armor, with fast energy weaponry, etc...

I far preferred the first 2 to Nova. I think it was the feeling of general ignorance about the universe at large I got in those games. The missions worked very hard to make you feel like you were simply in the right place at the right time. I always liked the mission in EV where some shipping reps give you an important shipment, just because you are the only person around at the time. It felt like pure luck when that happened. EV:N seems like it's setting you up for greatness from the start.

I was just wondering what people thought on this matter, I myself prefer Overidde.

asking this is kind of like asking "which Mario Bros. game is your favorite?". obviously, it is tough to judge a classic from the perspective of history, especially when, like me, i played the original EV when i was quite young and thus when it could hope to generate the maximum amount of nostalgia. it is also tough to compare a great original to other classics that follow in its wake, but which have a flair of their own. this is particularly true in regards to a medium that enjoys as much radical technical evolution as do computer games.

so those concerns with comparison aside...

if i could play the "frankenstein version", i would probably take the original EV universe and mix it with the EV:Nova engine. the plot of the original EV just seemed much less contrived and convenient, and there was a great sense of "what might be out there?" that the later games didn't quite capitalize on. but at the same time, the Nova engine is a lot prettier and much more technically flexible than the original.

Override didn't really do much for me one way or the other. i thought the ship designs were quite ridiculous and cartoony without the intention of being so, though some of the plotlines were quite enjoyble in their own right. i also seemed to run out of fuel alot more in override than the other games, and usually in desolate, lonely systems!

I wanted to love Nova. The graphics are way better, the universe is bigger, everything is just slicker; but, for some reason, I just couldn't make myself play that game, even after I bought a registration.

On the other hand, my summer of '99 was but a creepy, hazy blur of Override obssession. My friends told me I looked like hell, my life had become unmanageable, and I should go to AA, but all I could think about was getting farther along in the EVO universe.

That was easily the most addicted to a video game I've ever been. 2D, top-down gameplay. Grainy, 8-bit color. Text-based dialog. Tiny little space ships the size of a Tic-Tac. Go figure.